


we require certain skills

by dudski



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-19
Updated: 2012-06-19
Packaged: 2017-11-08 03:08:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/438466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dudski/pseuds/dudski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Freshmen never do the reading.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we require certain skills

**Author's Note:**

> For torigates' prompt "Conner, freshmen never do the reading" at the [Five Years Later ficathon](http://torigates.livejournal.com/341432.html).

1.

“...so, with that in mind, we’d like your permission to run the team ourselves, as a permanent affiliate of the Justice League. Miss Martian, Superboy and I will remove ourselves from consideration for League membership for the time being,” Dick said, wrapping up what had been a pretty long speech, all things considered. Conner hadn’t really been listening. He didn’t see why they had to _ask_ the League for permission to run their own team, they were - well, their ages were complicated, but they were adults, and they’d been doing this for longer than Superman and the others had been when they founded the League. The team was theirs, it was his more than it was the League’s, and asking for permission to keep it didn’t feel right. He went along with it, though, because M’gann and Zatanna said that making the formal request was important to Dick, and Conner had given up on understanding Bat stuff a long time ago.

“You’re sure about this? You’re going to take total responsibility for Team missions, operations, and recruiting?” asked Batman.

“And training,” added Black Canary. “Don’t forget training.”

“Yes,” said Dick, “we’ll take care of all of it.”

“All right,” said Batman. “It’s all yours. Now if you’ll excuse us, we have some League matters to discuss.”

As they made their way through the Watchtower, Conner paused and turned back to face the closed boardroom doors. “Can anyone else hear - are they _laughing_ in there?”

2.

They worked it out like this:

Dick was their liaison with the League. They all had a certain amount of input in mission selection and planning, but ultimately, he was team leader.

Mal handled communications and day-to-day cave operations and logistics.

M’gann was in charge of recruiting and orientation.

Rocket, Zatanna, and Conner oversaw training.

They’d split den mother duties - as much as the supervision had chafed sometimes, everyone agreed that they were grateful for it now. Besides, the whole point of making the team a permanent fixture was to provide that kind of support.

Karen was around to help out whenever her schedule allowed, and in emergency situations, they could call in Tempest or Artemis and Wally for backup.

“When we got started, Batman, Black Canary, and Red Tornado handled everything, just the three of them - think what we can do with six,” gushed M’gann when they finalized their plans. “We’ve totally got this under control.”

3.

They did not have it under control.

Not at all.

The recruits always seemed so _normal_ when Meg found them and brought them in - they were eager to learn, eager to please, and just all-around grateful to have the chance to finally use their gifts and talents to help people instead of having to act normal all the time.

That lasted three or four weeks, and then, as Dick put it, they’d get a little _too_ whelmed.

4.

Conner was in the middle of a lesson on the political history of Bialya, and yeah, he got it, lecture classes were their least favorite because they felt like school, but it was important stuff. Which is why he was so annoyed when he realized that Tim Drake was passing notes. Conner didn’t let on, just nodded slightly to Wolf, who padded up behind Gar, the middleman, and deftly snatched the paper in his teeth before Gar could pass it on. Tim groaned audibly and sank down in his seat when Wolf brought it up to the front of the room.

“Thanks, Wolf,” said Conner, unfolding the paper.

_CASSIE ---_

_DO YOU LIKE ME?_

_CHECK YES OR NO_

_TIM_

“Dude.” Conner looked up at Tim. “Seriously?”

5.

“Whoa, where’s the fire?” asked Conner as Gar, heaping bowl of popcorn in hand, nearly ran straight into him.

“I don’t want to miss the show!” Gar called back as he ran to the mission room. Conner shrugged and turned to follow. Might as well.

There didn’t seem to be anything unusual going on, though, just Dick leading some sparring drills between Tim and La’gaan. Zatanna was on the sidelines, testing their focus by peppering them with spells, and Barbara was on deck, waiting to face off with the winner, but there was nothing going on to explain why Gar and Mal were looking on with rapt attention, wordlessly shoveling popcorn into their mouths and eagerly tensed like they were waiting for something to explode.

“What’s going--” Conner started, but Mal shushed him.

“Just look at Barbara, you’ll see it,” he promised.

Barbara had an arm around Dick’s shoulder and was whispering something in his ear, smiling in a way that even Conner could recognize as flirtation. Zatanna didn’t seem to be paying any attention, but the spells she was tossing at La’gaan and Tim did seem to be a little rougher than usual.

“So Barbara doesn’t know that they’re...whatever they are?”

“Nope,” said Gar gleefully.

“And any minute now, she’ll be sparring with the winner while Zatanna hits her with spells?”

“You got it,” said Mal.

“I don’t know how B hasn’t figured it out,” said Gar. “No situational awareness whatsoever. Artemis would be appalled.”

“Give me some popcorn,” said Conner.

6.

“So this is the new setup, huh?” asked Conner.

“Sure is,” said Mal. “Everything’s state of the art - improved tracking, improved comm systems, improved surveillance, and best of all,” he said, settling into a seriously impressive chair and putting his feet up on the console, “improved comfort. I know Boy Wonder’s all about the holoscreens, but if I’m going to be running ops permanently, I need a setup that’s not going to kill my feet while you’re all off on marathon missions in Rhelasia. Plus: minifridge.”

The cave’s zeta portal flashed behind them, and something came shooting into the cave, directly for them. “Missile,” shouted Conner, grabbing Mal to pull him out of the line of fire, “GET DOWN!”

There was a resounding crash, but not the explosion Conner had been bracing for. “You okay?” he asked Mal, extending a hand to pull him up. “Sorry I tackled you like that, just...super reflexes, you know how it is.”

“I’m fine,” said Mal. He turned to survey the damage and winced. “My new command center wasn’t so lucky.”

“I’m calling Nightwing,” said Conner, “we’ve got to figure out what this attack was about.”

“You might want to hold off on that,” said Mal, jerking his head towards the pile of rubble, where something was shifting around and shouting “Sorry! Sorry!”

Cassie poked her head out of the debris. “I am _so sorry_ , you guys, I was in a hurry to get to the gym because I’m late for training with Rocket and I wasn’t expecting anything to be here and oh, I hope it wasn’t anything too important!”

Mal was mournfully examining what was left of his chair. “It was so comfortable,” he said.

“I know, Mal. I know,” said Conner.

7.

“Just to recap,” Dick said, “your assignment was to go to Gotham and covertly observe a meeting between two suspected Light operatives, then report back.”

Barbara and Tim nodded.

“And in the process, you broke Teddy Roosevelt’s nose off Mount Rushmore,” Conner continued. “In South Dakota.”

They nodded again.

“ _How?_ ”

8.

With the first wave of kids settled in and ready to set a bad example, the new recruits got cockier faster.

Conner was on the couch getting in his daily dose of No Signal when he heard La’gaan’s footsteps coming down the hall. La’gaan had been with the team a week, and he was...well, Conner wasn’t a fan. Something about the guy just set him off. It probably wasn’t even La’gaan’s fault, Conner thought, just the inherent weirdness of working with someone who was supposed to be a direct replacement for one of his best friends. They didn’t know where Kaldur was, not for certain, and it weighed on all of them.

Maybe he wasn’t being fair to La’gaan. It couldn’t be easy, after all, not only being in Kaldur’s shadow but also living on the surface for the first time, and not even being able to go out into Happy Harbor with the rest of them because he looked like...that. He probably owed the kid a second chance.

“Hey chum, what’s wrong with the TV?” asked La’gaan as he vaulted over the back of the couch and reached for the remote, flipping through the channels before Conner could object. “All right, _Orangutan Island_ is on Animal Planet! I love this show, monkeys are great.”

Some people didn’t deserve second chances. Instincts were there for a reason.

9.

“You blew up the kitchen,” Mal said, like if he repeated it slowly and clearly enough, they’d understand just how massively they’d screwed up.

Gar was miserably avoiding meeting Conner’s eyes, but Tim and La’gaan just looked defiant.

“It could have happened to anyone,” said La’gaan.

“Besides,” added Tim, “the cave’s got really good insurance, I’ve seen the policies. Rooms in this place are always blowing up.”

“That’s true,” said Conner. “But it’ll take weeks to get the kitchen up and running again, and do you know what date it is?”

“July first,” said Tim, and Gar’s eyes went wide as that sank in. “But I don’t see what that has to do with--”

“What it means,” said Mal, “is that it’s almost the Fourth of July. You know former team members always come back on the Fourth of July.”

Tim obviously figured it out then, because he went white as a sheet and made a face like he was about to cry.

“Could somebody fill me in on what the big deal is?” grumbled La’gaan. “So we’re going to have company, they’ve seen the cave in worse condition.”

Gar looked up at Conner, who nodded encouragingly. “Go ahead, Gar. Explain it to him.”

“We blew up the kitchen,” said Gar miserably, “and _Wally is coming_.”

Then it was La’gaan’s turn to look terrified.

10.

Stakeouts really weren’t Conner’s thing, never had been, but he’d volunteered for the El Paso mission because he just needed to get away. Things in the cave were...uncomfortable. And if he had to choose between a) crouching behind a wall and spying on the Light’s new compound for twelve hours straight or b) hanging around while M’gann and Lagoon Boy cooed “angelfish” at each other, Dick and Zatanna tried to make him talk about his feelings, and Gar followed him around asking “why?” like Conner had kicked his puppy, well, the excruciating tedium of a stakeout was going to win every time.

The mission was turning out to be significantly more eventful than he’d expected, though, when Mammoth and Shimmer had shown up, dragging a struggling blue _something_ between them. Conner couldn’t make out what Blue was yelling, but he was clearly being taken against his will, and it seemed as good a reason as any to scrap the stakeout. He’d been itching for a good fight for a while, and whatever else Mammoth was, he was _always_ a good fight.

As it turned out, Blue could hold his own. Almost. He was definitely packing a lot of power, but half the time it seemed like he wasn’t in control of it so much as holding on for dear life. He talked to himself a lot. Conner liked him.

“So,” said Conner conversationally after they overpowered Mammoth and Shimmer, just in time to make a break for it when reinforcements started to pour out of the Light’s bunker, “you’re kind of rough around the edges.”

“Yeah,” said Blue, “you could say that. My mom prefers to call it ‘kind of prone to blowing up the house,’ though. The suit didn’t exactly come with instructions. There’s a lot of breaking stuff.”

“I have some people you should meet,” Conner told him. “You’ll fit right in.”


End file.
